


Distance

by Fumm95



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: "I never want him to cry again" I say as I write him being emotional, Book VIII spoilers, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 06:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13475292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fumm95/pseuds/Fumm95
Summary: A brief glimpse of the ride from Nopal back to Vesuvia.





	Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive! Honestly, I was mostly distracted by holiday prompts and stuff that I was posting on my tumblr, which is why my AO3 account has been inactive for a month and a half now. In order to keep this account more active, I am thinking about making collections of my prompt fills here, so you don't have to follow my tumblr to get all of my writing.
> 
> ANYWAY, I know I still have plenty of unfinished things to write but this idea wouldn't leave me alone and now I'm crying over Asra again please send help.

The night is quiet.

Around her, all she can hear is the beat of hooves against the earth, steady and reassuring in the darkness surrounding them. The serenity would almost be welcome if not for the wild racing of her heart and the unwavering silence from her companion.

Ever since instructing her to hold on, Asra has been silent, fingers curled into thick fur as he leans forward against the neck of the beast. Several times, she’s wondered whether he’s fallen asleep, but the occasional tremor shakes his form, and if his distress at her earlier, failed attempt at creating water is anything like her own, she suspects it will be a sleepless night for both of them.

Instead, she shifts in her seat, studying the distance between their bodies, amplified by his tilt. Their posture is a far cry from the comfortable arrangement they adopted for their trip to Nopal, though this return trip is also a far different atmosphere than their departure. Has it really been less than two days since they left the city, bright and optimistic and looking forward to a short break from the desolation that surrounds the palace in perpetual gloom?

She must have sighed; Asra twists in his seat to look back at her, something inscrutable in the depths of the violet gaze, though it’s soon replaced with something that, if she did not know him as well as she does, would seem like nothing more than a gentle smile. “Comfortable?”

Blinking, she opens her mouth to answer in the affirmative, but catches herself. She _does_ know him better than to believe his facade, can see the slight hesitation that he’s struggling to hide, though whether that, whether his conscious effort to maintain distance between them, is from apprehension or preference, she can’t be certain.

“Are you?”

For a heartbeat, his expression shifts to something tragic, that makes her chest ache, before clearing into a semblance of normalcy but even that short glimpse is enough to recall the words he spoke in the cottage, his fear of losing her. The tear that managed to escape his nearly ironclad control.

She’s not sure she’s ever truly seen him cry. Not like that.

That fact only makes the reassuring look he offers her worse.

“Don’t,” she says softly before he can speak. It’s quiet enough that she wonders whether he can even hear her, but he drops his gaze, mouth closing before he can say anything. “Please don’t try to pretend.”

“Seraphyna…” His voice is fond and genuine this time, a small, sad smile dancing on his lips. “What I wouldn’t give for half of your spirit.” Intensity floods his gaze, at once piercing and heartbreaking. “I would take you far from this chaos, if I could. But things have already gone too far and there are things even I can’t keep you safe from.”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t want you to. Not if it means I can’t be here for you.”

In the moonlight, something shimmers in his eyes and his lip trembles. “I don’t know what I would do if… I can’t lose you.”

“I know.” She leans forward, tightening her arms around his waist. “But you won’t. I promise.”

To that, he says nothing, but as they tear their way across the grassy plains and back towards Vesuvia, he leans back against her chest in wordless thanks.

She doesn’t loosen her embrace until the stars fade and the sky begins to tint a faint red with the sunrise.


End file.
